Saturday, 28 November 2015

Move to outlaw dissent with attacks on civil liberties through the Trade Union, Investigatory Powers Bill and repeal of the Human Rights Act

The
attack on civil liberties, evident in the Trade Union Bill (TUB), needs to be
viewed in the wider context of an increasingly authoritarian government
determined to outlaw any form of dissent.

The
anti-libertarian elements seen in the TUB also find resonance in the
Investigatory Powers Bill and the efforts to scrap the Human Rights Act and
replace it with a watered down Bill of Rights. The measures taken together
amount to an attempt to advance the powers of the authoritarian state at the
cost of the rights of the citizen.

Liberty,
Amnesty International, the TUC and Conservative MP David Davis are amongst
those who have condemned the negative impact that the Trade Union Bill will
have on civil rights if it is made law.

The
thrust of the TUB is a direct attack on the right of trade unions to exist and
operate effectively in the workplace and beyond. The right to strike is being
made more difficult, with the new thresholds of a minimum 50% turnout and at
least 40% of those eligible needing to vote in favour.

Then
there are the efforts to restrict assembly by insisting that a picket
supervisor must be appointed with a letter of authorisation to that effect.
Details of the supervisor have to be provided to the police. The supervisor
also has to wear an armband or badge identifying themselves. Unions are to be
required to give two weeks notice of industrial action rather than the present
seven days.

Conservative
MP Davis questioned the need for pickets to give their names to the police
force. “What is this? This isn’t Franco’s Britain, this is Queen Elizabeth II’s
Britain,” said Davis.

Liberty,
Amnesty International and the British Institute for Human Rights have described
the TUB as “a major attack” on civil liberties.
“By placing more legal hurdles in the way of unions organising strike action,
the TUB will undermine ordinary people’s ability to organise together to
protect their jobs, livelihoods and the quality of their working lives,” said a
statement by the three organisations. “It will introduce harsher restrictions
on those who picket peacefully outside workplaces - even though pickets are
already more regulated than any other kind of protest.

“It is
hard to see the aim of this bill as anything but seeking to undermine the
rights of all working people.”

The
thread of denying the most basic civil rights is taken forward in the
Investigatory Powers Bill or as it is more commonly known the “Snoopers
Charter.” The Bill seeks to make phone companies keep records of websites
visited by every citizen for 12 months so that they can be accessed by police,
security services and other public bodies.

The Bill
makes explicit in law the power of the police to hack into and bug computers
and phones. The phone companies will also be required to assist with the
operations to bypass encryption.

Judges
are to be given a role but this is not to authorise or dismiss interception
requests but instead to oversee whether politicians are exercising that power
correctly.

“We expect the State to obtain a warrant before entering our homes, never
mind searching them and taking away our belongings. Why should it be any
different when it comes to our communications?” said a Liberty spokesperson.

The
authoritarian intent of the government has been clear since it won office last
May, declaring it wanted to do away with the Human Rights Act. This head of
steam to take away human rights was engendered by some selective reporting of
particular cases brought under the Act by the right wing media and tapping into
a xenophobic anti-Europeanism.

The
Conservative Government wanted to pull out of the HRA, which simply enshrines
the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. The ECHR has nothing
to do with the European Union and is something that Britain has been signed up
to since its creation post World War II. Ironically, Britain played a major
role in the creation of the ECHR in the first place. The HRA merely gave the
full power of the ECHR at first instance through the British domestic courts.
Prior to incorporation of the ECHR individuals had to appeal their cases to the
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

In the
first instance, the government realised that it was not going to be able to get
repeal of the HRA through the House of Lords. However, Justice minister Michael
Gove now appears to have revived the idea, with a consultation underway on a
Bill of Rights.

These
three developments are symptomatic of an overall effort to clamp down on
dissent. Over recent years, there have been ongoing efforts to make public
protest more difficult. Most recently this saw the Metropolitan Police seeking
to make protest organisers pay for the policing of their own events.

There has
been a steady drip drip approach to taking away human rights over recent years,
on the basis of the need to provide security. Former Chief Constable of Devon
and Cornwall John Alderson has warned that this has been the claim of dictators
down the years. He was not wrong.

One
dictator who knew the value of this mantra was Adolf Hitler, who said: “The
best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a
little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousands, tiny and
almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those
rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes
cannot be reversed.”

Some
would argue that it is this erosion of rights process that is now underway,
with the most visible evidence coming
with the moves to implement the Trade Union Bill and Investigatory Powers Bill
and repeal the Human Rights Act. Human
rights organisations certainly seem in little doubt.

“Cracking
down on civic space is a global phenomenon that is deeply worrying to Amnesty,
and it’s very concerning that it’s happening in the UK too. Recently, we’ve
seen the UK government pursue a shameless policy of prioritising business
interests over human rights concerns,” said James Savage, director of Amnesty’s
Human Rights Defenders Programme. “As the British
government rolls out the red carpet for autocratic leaders, it is rolling back
the rights agenda here in the UK, through its threat to replace the Human
Rights Act with a weaker British Bill of Rights, placing growing restrictions
on rights of assembly and association with the Trade Union Bill, and ever-more-invasive
infringements on the right to privacy via expanded surveillance powers and
practice."

Liberty claim that “just six months in the government is showing an
arrogant disregard for our rights and freedoms.”

While the Investigatory Powers Bill will undermine the security and
freedom of everyone who uses a computer or phone. Combine with this vindictive
Trade Union Bill, attempts to curb the Freedom of Information Act and the
proposed scrapping of our Human Rights Act and it seems the Government is
intent on dismantling the most effective tools ordinary people have to protect
themselves against the whims of the powerful,” said Bella Sankey, director of
policy at Liberty.

What is
for sure is that human rights are under attack across the board, failure to
stand up and fight for these hard won protections will severely damage everyone
in the long run.